WASHINGTON – The FBI is looking into whether the Saudi government – using the bank account of the wife of its U.S. ambassador – sent thousands of dollars to two Saudi students who helped two 9/11 hijackers, it was reported yesterday.

Hijackers Khalid Almidhar and Nawaf Alhazmi may have gotten money from the bank account of Princess Haifa Al-Faisal – who besides being the ambassador’s wife is the daughter of the late Saudi King Faisal, Newsweek says on its Web site.

Almidhar and Alhazmi hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, which was crashed into the Pentagon.

Starting in early 2000, they received money from Omar Al Bayoumi, a Saudi student in California.

Al Bayoumi got $3,500 a month from an account in the princess’s name at Riggs Bank in Washington, the magazine said.

Al Bayoumi threw the hijackers a party when they arrived Los Angeles from an al Qaeda summit in Malaysia. He also guaranteed the lease on an apartment next door to his – and paid $1,500 to cover their first two months’ rent, the magazine says.

After Al Bayoumi left the United States in July 2001, payments for the same amount from the princess’s bank account flowed to Osama Basnan, a friend of Al Bayoumi who also befriended the hijackers.

Basnan, who has been convicted of visa fraud and is awaiting deportation, was a known al Qaeda sympathizer who celebrated the 9/11 attacks and talked about “what a wonderful, glorious day it had been,” Newsweek said.

Bush administration officials told the magazine they didn’t know the purpose of the payments from Princess Haifa’s account. A spokeswoman for the princess said “she will cooperate fully with the United States.”

Meanwhile, lawyers for the families of Sept. 11 victims accused two Saudi princes – and the Saudi Arabian Bank, which is partly owned by Citibank – of helping finance al Qaeda operations.

The charges were added to a $1 trillion class-action lawsuit filed by relatives of attack victims.